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fab lab

A Fab Lab (or fabrication laboratory) is a small-scale workshop offering (personal) digital fabrication, generally equipped with an array of flexible computer-controlled tools that cover several different length scales and various materials, with the aim to make "almost anything". This includes technology-enabled products generally perceived as limited to mass production.

Running our Fab Lab Amsterdam for over eight years now we are regularly asked to share experiences on how to set up a lab yourself. Early on we realized that setting up a lab is not simply putting a set of machines in a space.

Architect Christopher de Vries (of Rademacher &amp; de Vries), maybe familiar to some of you working on the Amsteldecks project, is milling an art work showing four beautiful reliefs of an old mine in Southern Limburg.

The gap between utopian thinking and actual implementation in cities is becoming smaller through the bridges laid out by technology. Commitments from city governments and urban communities alike are setting the example for social innovation, and moving beyond the lab space into the cities themselves. Yet, important questions are emerging.

It’s been a month full of travelling and meeting new people, for the Creative Learning Lab. After our visit to FabLearn in Denmark, we were invited to FABelgrade in Serbia. FABelgrade is the first FabLab conference in Serbia, organised by the people of FabInitiative, Polyhedra and Fablab Belgrade.

We, Robin van Westen and Karien Vermeulen, were invited to visit and present at FabLearn Denmark in Aarhus and Silkeborg. The conference brought together educators, Fablab crews, researchers and people from municipalities to share work and look towards the future of maker education.

In context of the EU project GRAGE (short for ‘Green and Grey in Europe’), I visited Munich for two weeks. GRAGE focuses on the growing population of older adults (55+) in European cities. The programme aims to accumulate knowledge about environments that support green and healthy lifestyles for an aging population. We look at ‘aging’ as a creative challenge, instead of a burden, and investigate how elderly can (continue to) contribute in a so-called ‘silver economy’.

The last years I wondered about the buzz around digital fabrication. While studying architecture at the Technical University of Delft (2003 - 2010), I experimented with this technology to create architectural models. As design and education professional in the cultural field (2010 - present) I used this technology in practice. It took me years to learn how to use these tools within my design process.

People and things will be more connected to each other than ever before, making access more important than ownership. Openthings is a platform for people to learn from one another and develop projects together. Through teaching each other, people should be able to develop projects further than they can on their own.

One Architecture and Waag both are researching how digital (fabrication) technologies can change the field of architecture. 3D design, scanning, printing and milling, social networking, all these and other technologies are changing how we make things, fitting to our local contexts and personal needs.

Many people might have a sketchbook in their bag. You could easily buy one in a shop, but it’s more fun to be creative and make your own! After the first Fab Night making kalimbas, this time we focused on bookbinding with a machine to make your own beautiful sketchbooks.

On Friday April 4th, an introduction workshop on traditional Urushi lacquer technique was organised at the Makers Guild / Fablab Amsterdam in collaboration with FabLab Kamakura (Japan) and with Dr. Kenji Toki (Japan) as lector.

On May 24th, Alex Schaub was invited by the Rome Maker Faire organisation to give a presentation about the Fablab Amsterdam. An impressive mixed audience of 650 people showed up to see and meet Neil Gershenfeld, the founder of the Fablab movement.

This year, the annual conference of the international Fablab community on implications and implementations of digital fabrication, Fab8, was held at the Massey University in Wellington New Zealand. The worldwide Fablab community is growing rapidly. There are now about 145 Fablabs and this number is doubling every two years. In New Zealand, the Mãori culture is very strongly interwoven in society. No wonder the opening ceremony of Fab8 begun with a welcome talk (Mihi Whakatau) in Mãori language, followed by a special song, and then the greeting ritual - nose on nose with each other.